


How Far We Could Fall

by TolkienScholar23



Series: How Far We Could Fall: Erik & Madame Giry [3]
Category: Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 17:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16371908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienScholar23/pseuds/TolkienScholar23
Summary: "Are you scared, mademoiselle?" It was a question Erik had asked her many times. Perhaps she should have been scared a little sooner.





	How Far We Could Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Tightrope" from _The Greatest Showman_.

"Are you scared, Mademoiselle?"

I stared at the skinny, bone-white hand extended towards me, then down into the masked face of the boy perched between heaven and earth, with only a narrow wooden beam between him and the vast empty blackness plunging down to the stage below. He had the grace and calm of a cat that knows it will always land on its feet, but I, the little ballerina, could feel my legs growing steadily more leaden.

He smiled, and I caught a devilish gleam in his golden eyes that made my heart race.

"Come on, Tilde. I won't let you fall."

And I believed him. I stepped out into the darkness.

* * *

"Are you scared, Mademoiselle?"

Scarcely daring to breathe, I stared up into the masked face of the man beside me. His body always felt deathly cold, but wrapped in his arms, I felt warmth racing through my body, vivid and alive. Outside the Palais Garnier was a world that could never accept him, never accept us, but here in the depths of the opera house, that world seemed hardly to exist.

He smiled at me, and his golden eyes shone with love. Slowly, I lifted my hands to the sleek white mask that covered my angel's devilish face. With a swift motion, I swept it off and raised my lips to his.

"It can be like this, Mathilde," he whispered when we broke apart. "We can forget the world outside. It can be just us, our love, forever."

And I believed him. Until the outside world called again, and I had to go.

* * *

"Are you scared, Madame?"

I stared into the masked face of the man once more standing in my dressing room mirror. Decades of wrong choices and bitter betrayals lay between us now, and whatever might have been was lost. Now here he was, a fallen angel with blood on his hands, and if knowing too much was the crime that had killed Joseph Buquet, then I was dead where I stood.

He smiled dangerously, and his golden eyes gleamed with the reflection of the very fires of hell.

"Come now, Mathilde," he said. "Did you think that I would harm you? Why should I make you pay for the sins which are theirs?"

But this time I did not believe him. Backing swiftly to the dressing room door, I flung it open and fled.


End file.
